Tracy S. Morris lives in the Fort Smith Arkansas area. She lives with her husband and two dogs. The Dogs are in charge. Tracy is the editor of Eden's Containers, a blog for Container Gardens as well as the Tranquility Mystery series. You can find her at http://tracysmorris.com. Eden's Containers is located at http://edenscontainer.com

InfoBarrel is a writing platform for non-fiction, reference-based, informative content. Opinions expressed by InfoBarrel writers are their own.

Can't Afford A Trip to Venice? Viva Las Vegas!

Strip Hotels Recreate Exotic Desinations

Credit: Marco AmstuzThere are jet-setting world travelers, and then there are the rest of us. The jet setters think nothing of hopping a plane and seeing the world and have passports with stamps that range from China to Canada. If you dream of seeing Venice but your budget won’t allow it, you can visit the next best thing in Las Vegas.

While some cities have distinctive skylines, The Las Vegas skyline contains bits of other cities. Here you have New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge, The Eiffel Tower of Paris fame and The Sphinx from Egypt. You can see the world without ever putting a stamp in a passport. Just avoid the casinos. Loosing big in Las Vegas may cost you more than a plane ticket to Bora-Bora.

Here are some of the attractions on the Las Vegas Strip that would make a world-traveler feel right at home.

Luxor

The owners of The Luxor named it after the Egyptian city of Luxor. Although the hotel once had an Egyptian theme, the hotel’s designers have cast it aside in favor of an ultra-modern interior. The hotel grounds include a pyramid-style tower and two more ziggurat shaped towers. The exterior of the hotel features palm trees, and recreations of the giant Sphinx and Cleopatra’s Needle.

Venetian

Credit: deror_aviYou don’t have to stay at the Venetian to wander through the attractions that the hotel offers. The exterior recreates two canals, part of Venice’s St. Mark’s Square, a portion of the Doge’s palace and the Rialto Bridge. The designers of The Venetian faithfully recreated the sights of Venice, right down to having security guards patrol in Venetian police uniforms. Visitors can wander the streets and square or take a ride in a gondola.

New York-New York

The New York-New York is built to look like the New York Skyline – If a giant took the most famous buildings in the New York Skyline and pushed them together like Lego bricks. Like the Luxor, New York-New-York’s owners gave the hotel an ultra modern makeover that stripped away most of the New York City themed decor. Visitors can still find restaurants themed around particular New York neighborhoods, a Coney-Island themed arcade with a roller coaster, and replicas of tenement buildings with graffiti on them. A roller coaster winds around the exterior of the hotel and even passes through the hotel’s interior. The cars of the coaster resemble New York Checker Cabs.

Paris Las Vegas

Like New York-New York, Paris Las Vegas has taken the most famous buildings in Paris and pushed them all together in one area. The Eiffel Tower actually straddles the other buildings. Here visitors can ride a half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower up to the observation deck and see the rest of the strip. Or they can stay on the ground and explore the hotel’s interior, which reproduces Paris in fantasy miniature. There are French-themed shops including a French bakery and signs printed in faux French that look like they were written by Pepe LePew, the cartoon skunk.